Pieces
by eiahmon
Summary: Companion piece to Stay In The Rain. Years after the events in Lament of Innocence, Leon lies on his deathbed, thinking of the events that lead up to the end of his life.


**Disclaimer: Don't own. I can dream though. **

It was raining again.

Leon laid on the ratty, flea infested straw mattress, staring blankly at the ceiling above him. He could barely see the leaking thatch roof, dripping water in places from the rain outside. He counted it as a small blessing that none of the leaks were above his narrow bed. He shifted, weakly trying to get into a position that would not aggravate his flea bites and bed sores. He knew that it was futile to try; he barely had the strength to turn his head, much less try to move his entire body. He whimpered as his shifting made little stabs of pain from his bleeding, festering bedsores flicker across his backside. How long had he lain on the mattress, covered by dirt, sweat, and his own waste, since he had long ago lost the strength to get up and take care of that sort of problem?

Leon didn't know, not that it really mattered anymore. He could feel the fever consuming him; it had already laid waste to his body, now it was after his life. Another whimper escaped from his parched throat and dry, cracked lips as he tried to arch his blistered back up off the rotting straw mattress. His skin stuck to the wool casing, pulling the dead and dying flesh away from his back, causing the wounds there to start bleeding again. Gods he was so thirsty...

His last sip of water had been two days ago, just before his family had abandoned him. His teenaged son had gently supported his head and had held a simple cup of water to Leon's lips, allowing him to sip it until it was gone. Then he had laid Leon's feverish head down onto the feather pillow, had tucked the rough wool blanket around him, then the boy had walked out, the Vampire Killer whip hanging from his belt. Leon had thought that he had seen the whip pulse with a soft violet light as the boy had followed his mother out of the small one room cottage. Leon had been left alone with only the dripping rain and the burning in his veins as the fever laid waste to his once strong frame.

At least the Belmont line would continue, he had told himself. His son had been a good boy and an avid learner, more than happy to take the whip that contained the soul of the woman that his father still loved with his whole heart and use it to destroy all vampires. The boy's mother had been violently opposed to the idea, but Leon had insisted, the one thing that he had insisted on during the course of their twenty year marriage. He had not married for love then; he had married because he was desperate to find some way to continue his family line. He had sworn that the Belmonts would forever hunt the night, not resting until Mathias was destroyed, and he intended to keep that promise, no matter what it took. So he married the only woman who would have him, a shrew of a woman that other men avoided because of her attitude and controlling ways. No one else wanted anything to do with him, not since he had defeated Walter. Everyone believed Walter undefeatable, and when Leon had ended the Eternal Night, all had feared the power that he had to used in order to do so. Things had been bad; people had been afraid of him, he had been unable to reclaim his title and lands, then things had gotten much worse.

The Cronqvist family had blamed him for the disappearance of Mathias. Leon had faced their accusations bravely, not bothering to correct their assumptions that Mathias had been a dying invalid that had disappeared right around the time that Leon had gone to Walter's castle. Since he had been the last person to see Mathias "alive", he had taken the fall for the Cronqvist patriarch's loss. The only reason that he hadn't been executed was the church had decided that his defeat of the vampire had won him some leniency. Instead, he had been exiled, chased away by an angry mob intent on taking justice into their own hands.

With nowhere to go and no one to turn to, Leon had done whatever he could to survive, eking out a meager living on growing a small plot of vegetables and chopping and selling firewood to some of the local lords. During the day, he worked until he thought that he might collapse from exhaustion. At night he cried himself to sleep, only to wake during the night, tears flowing down his face from the memories of his former life. After a few years, he had married, and his son had been born barely a year later.

When he was not playing with his son, working until he dropped or fending off the controlling mind of his wife, Leon would take the whip and go hunting for vampires. He killed several young ones, but he never encountered one that knew Mathias or had seen him. Mathias, it seemed, had fled the country. Leon almost longed to see the tactician's face again, to hear that voice. Life as a vampire, or even death at his former friend's hands, seemed preferable to a life of misery. It was only his promise to Sara that kept him from acting on his thoughts.

Leon moaned as tremors wracked his body, painfully jostling his mutilated back. It hurt so much... His eyelids felt so heavy, and he felt as though someone was standing on his chest, making it difficult to breathe. So this is dying, he thought as he let his eyes sink shut. He whimpered again; if only it wasn't so painful...

He heard the creaking of the leather hinges on the door and forced his eyes open a crack. He thought he saw Mathias standing in the door, looking at him in concern. But that was impossible; Mathias was gone. He closed his eyes again, ignoring the hallucination that was no doubt caused by his high fever. He heard the rustling of cloth as the hallucination moved towards him, stopping by the bed. He felt strong arms gently picking him up and felt the soft material of a very familiar smelling fur lined cloak wrapping around his frail frame. Unused to the disturbance, he reached out and felt soft hair under his fingers, causing him to grasp a fistful of it. He felt himself being nestled securely in the imaginary arms that held him as he was carried away from the bed and out of the cottage, still clinging to the hair, despite the weakness in his arms and hands. Cold raindrops splashed down on his fevered skin, making him moan in relief, even as he shivered from the sudden cold. The cloak was cinched tighter around him and a familiar voice whispered gently:

"Rest, Leon, you have earned your peace."

He relaxed into the imaginary embrace, trusting the one who held him, even if it was only a hallucination, completely. He took one last failing breath.

Then Leon Belmont knew no more.

Decades later, after the Belmont family was able to reclaim their lost lands and titles, they mourned the loss of their family patriarch. They grieved for the man that had done only good and had untold suffering heaped upon him for it. They raged that anyone of their blood could so easily abandon their father to die a miserable, lonely death. They were saddened that he had never been given a proper funeral, as he had disappeared from his deathbed, despite his wife's insistence that he had been to weak too move under his own power.

As they opened the family vault, determined to give Leon a final rest, if only they were interring an empty coffin with his name on it, they were surprised to see the very man lying peacefully on a stone bier, wrapped in a heavy fur lined cloak, his face unlined and relaxed, the dirt and grime he had been forced into by the abandonment of his family washed away. Trevor stepped close and reached out to touch the face that still showed the obvious signs of serious illness, and he felt his fingers tingle just as the Vampire Killer gave a soft violet pulse.

He stepped back; so Mathias had apologized in the end after all.

He gestured for everyone to leave the vault, and he followed them, taking one last glance at the finally peaceful form on the bier.

In Leon's hand was a fistful of soft, dark hair.


End file.
